The Treo was the original smartphone. The orignal smart phone that Blackberry copied was the Treo.
Apple's spin was ditching the keyboard, but by then even the sony ericcson P800 had a full screen phone with a touch keyboard years before apple.
Apples spin wasn't ditching the keyboard as so many people think, it was designing the user interface around finger-based touch, making the interface easy enough for normal people to use, and finally to ship a decent performing browser at a time when most other phones were a nightmare to use when browsing the web (try a N95, also released in 2007, to see what I mean)
I forgot about the communicator because I didn't consider it a smart-enough phone to use. I kept using my Palm Pilot Pro becuse it gave me the productivity I needed. The communicator definitely had a keyboard and apps though, I just didn't find them usable at the time.
By far it is still one of the most bad ass looking phones, with that folding out.
On a side note, the Handspring Visor Phone addon is also worthy of a shoutout, since it was out before the Treo..
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Handspring_Releases_V...
but it was a niche product that probably didn't appear in the u.s. much.
as a psion user i lusted after these devices. but price of mobile data put them out of my reach.
i used a psion 5 as my main computer till 99 when i wanted to start ripping cds for an mp3 player amongst other things.
Fair enough, but now you're describing evolution, not revolution.
Which of course is the whole point: ideas are items of trade. Someone thinks of something and someone else improves it. That's the way innovation works. Apple has surely done more of it than any other single company, but they've also, like everyone else, "stolen" far more than they invented themselves.
Claiming that they have some special ground with the iPhone is just a laughable, juvenile flame war. I wish these would stop.
Back in 2007 I joined a new employer. One evening during my new hire training a colleague demo'ed his iPhone he brought over from America to Europe. All other attendees, including myself, were amazed about the multitouch, pinch and zoom photo's, the easiness of use, the awesome GUI and the beautiful design. At the end of the demo there was a deep respectful silence by all of us. Amazement. Thinking about our own phones at the time compared to what we just saw.
Then.. the owner of the iPhone put it gently against his face and caressed it. Yes he actually caressed it. I still remember that image.
This is the "thing". You know, this thing called love. Something that cannot be traded like an item and which still holds true for many.
before thi ihone, no app store no multi touch, litte integration outside of the blackberry, and smartphones and phones in general sucked by comparison. how quickly we forget how crappy what we had before was. sure, previous products had lots f features............ but they didnt blowpeoples minds, or make their companies the most valuable ever.
We're not forgetting that they sucked. We're pointing out Apple didn't invent this stuff.
Touchscreens, had those for years. Multi-touch? Lots shown in the ARS article. Here's some http://tactiva.com/demo.html. Includes pinch to zoom, 2 finger rotate objects. Also includes tactile feedback, something no tablet has introed yet AFAIK.
Apps, had those too for years. Oh look, it's instructions from 2001 on how to write apps for phones http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Cupertino/1621/
App stores? Did you ever bother to look? There's been app stores since at least 2001. None of them were that popular but they did exist.
Oh look, my WinCE box boots into a grid of icons in 2001 http://blog.greggman.com/japan/ce/dsc03224.jpg
Maps, I had 3d first person maps on my 2004 feature phone, something still missing from any iPhones I know of. They had 2d maps in 2000
Games, Yep, last 5 phones I owned before my iPhone all had downloadable games. Here's me playing mappy I just purchased from an online app store in 2001 http://blog.greggman.com/blog/what_s_this_/
Cameras? Here's pictures from my 2001 cellphone camera http://blog.greggman.com/blog/pictures_from_cell_/
Facetime? Here's Facetime on a P2101V from 2001 http://blog.greggman.com/blog/more_cellphone_madness/
Front and back cameras? 2002 http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2002/11/15/my-new-p504is.html
Airtime, i.e. TV playback? 2003 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XWLG-6qPwo
Webpage browsing? Yep. Wrote my first blog post from a phone in 2001. Maybe Apple can claim full browsing first on iPhone though I suspect people have earlier examples. I could certainly view full pages through Opera Mini before iPhone.
Music? Several of the phones I owned has music stores built in and some phones advertised how awesome a movie player they were. Synced to PC and everything.
Want an iPad? How about the Sony Airboard, 2001. Wireless internet browsing touchscreen tablet http://www.sony.jp/airboard/indexpc.html
Did Apple take all those features and make them super awesome? YES.
The point is THEY TOOK EXISTING FEATURES. They didn't invent them. They just made them way better. Awesome. It's the little details they did well. It's the sum of the parts. It's pretty hard to pick any one thing for which there is no precedence. Cut and Paste? old. Zoom under pointer? Old. Slide to Unlock? Old. Email? Old. Pages of icons? old. They brought awesome style and design but even my old B/W WinCE machine linked above I didn't need or use any of the buttons except POWER and I could use my finger to control everything else.